As the EU has increasingly faced an atmosphere of disunity and disruption, Trump’s ditching the JCPOA only threatens to make matters worse for Europe.
But that’s not all, says the EU’s foreign policy chief, Frederica Mogherini, it also increasingly isolates America as she points out that ‘no country is big enough to face this world alone’.
It seems that Trump’s hubris is big enough to try it.
Politico reports:
FLORENCE, Italy — The Iran nuclear deal can survive without the United States’ support, Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said Friday.
Speaking at a State of the Union conference, Mogherini said she has received assurances from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that the country would stand by the agreement, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw and reimpose sanctions on Iran earlier this week.
“We are determined to keep this deal in place,” Mogherini said, adding that only Iran has the power to unilaterally wreck the deal.
The Italian diplomat will meet with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and the United Kingdom — the three European powers that brokered the nuclear deal along with the EU, U.S., China and Russia — in Brussels Tuesday to discuss the future of the agreement. The European diplomats will also meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Europeans are seeking to demonstrate that they can still deliver most of the economic benefits Tehran was promised in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons program and allowing a robust system of international inspections, as well as persuade European companies active in Iran not to abandon their deals out of fear of being penalized by the U.S.
In her speech, Mogherini took several shots at Trump, though she did not mention the U.S. president by name, saying: “It seems that screaming, shouting, insulting and bullying, systematically destroying and dismantling everything that is already in place, is the mood of our times. While the secret of change — and we need change — is to put all energies not in destroying the old, but rather in building the new.
“This impulse to destroy is not leading us anywhere good,” she added. “It is not solving any of our problems.”
Europe has gone along with just about everything that America has asked for, and sometimes, even volunteering. Whether it has been war or economic sanctions, Europe has been gung-ho about showing some solidarity with American interests in the hopes of scoring some browning points with the Americans, both over the business of security, as well as obtaining America’s interest in joining in on European market initiatives.
But it hasn’t all been quite as rosy as was hoped. Europe hasn’t been paying attention to America’s belligerent and narcissistic ways. America has overthrown regimes, waged wars and slighted international law whenever its suits them. Why, then, should they be expected to be a reliable partner in anything, when they have such a long history of breaking their word and violating their own principles? Now, it seems, Europe is finally starting to see what their unfaithful partner is really about.
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